Don’t complain about your sales if you’re not showing up on video.
You might feel like you’re doing every single thing you possibly can, but it’s just not leading to any new sales or clients.
I’m going to be real with you for a minute: that’s not true. You’re not doing everything. And that’s good news! Because it means that you’re missing something – and you can do something about it.
Today, I’m going to walk you through how to show up online to get new sales.
We’re going to talk about the AITA sales formula, infusing authenticity and authority into your brand, creating valuable content, and showing up on video.
If you need a little confidence boost, some motivation and a framework that you can actually stick to, read on …
Step #1: Audit your profile
Let’s dive right in with your Instagram profile.
If you’re anything like me or my clients, you use social media – Instagram especially – to attract new clients. Let me guess:
- You’ve set up an account,
- given it a snazzy name,
- and you’re posting inspirational quotes.
It feels like you’re putting a lot of energy into it but it’s not paying off. What I’m going to ask you to do is take a step back and audit your profile.
The first test is to look at your profile picture. Your profile picture might be a logo, or else it might be a photo of you – but one that’s a bit dark and blurry.
This is the first thing we need to address. When you’re selling something, people need to buy from you. That means you need to put yourself out there. There are many competitors out there, but we want your ideal customer to buy from you.
“But how do I make that happen, Amy?“
I hear you ask… Here’s how: you need to show personality to become an authentic authority.
Ask yourself these 2 questions:
#1 Am I actually visible?
I often see profile pictures where you can hardly make out who the person is, because their face is too small or far away. You need to be front and centre. Be consistent and use the same profile picture everywhere – and make sure you’re smiling.
Remember, your Instagram is your digital shopfront. We want it to look inviting, so that people who spot you on social media want to find out more about what you offer.
Top tip: please don’t hide away by using a logo as your profile picture. This only really makes sense if you run a big company or if you run a product-based brand where you’re not visible yourself.
#2 Are you posting every day?
The second test is to check whether you post every day. Back in the day people used to tell you need to post 4 times a day. That’s actually something that really worked for me, but platforms are changing all the time, and now that’s more of a TikTok thing.
If you want to grow on Instagram, you need to give value and go deep – no pun intended. You don’t necessarily need to post that often anymore. **You don’t even have to post every day. But if you aren’t getting the results you want, it’s something you should try.
The same applies when it comes to video: you don’t have to get on video, but if you’re not making as many sales as you’d like to, I’m going to ask you to quit whining and show up on video. It’s just such an easy solution – and you’ll never know if you never try!
Step #2: Implement the AITA sales formula
So, you’ve made your digital shopfront as inviting as you could, and you’re showing potential clients what you’re all about – great!
Now let’s take a look at why being on video and creating high value content are so important to your sales – whether that’s to get your first client or to improve what you’re already doing. The AITA sales formula is your ticket to get your content to convert leads into paying clients, and it’s made up of the following four parts:
- Awareness
- Interest
- Trust
- Action
1. Awareness
There are lots of people who are aware that your business exists: this group includes people who follow your account, people who have heard about your business from a friend, or one-time visitors that randomly end up on your account. If you want to get more sales in your business, you want as many people as possible to be in the awareness phase of the AITA sales formula.
In simple English, this means that we want everyone to know that your business exists.
How do we go about spreading awareness? That’s a great question. To generate more traffic passing by your digital shopfront, you could create and repost viral content, or you could focus on word-of-mouth advertising, which has been a really important factor in growing the FastForwardAmy brand. I generate a lot of word-of-mouth advertising because I have a lot of very happy clients who tell their friends about me. It’s a great way of raising awareness, and your main focus is on providing a service so f*cking amazing that your clients just want to tell the whole world about it.
If you want to step into a new market and reach new audiences, you have to do things differently. You can do this through ads, or through working together with people from different audiences. At the moment, for example, I’m doing more podcast interviews with guests from Australia and the US on my podcast because I want to grow and become bigger internationally.
2. Interest
Once you’ve generated the traffic, it’s important to have content that’s interesting to your potential clients. They follow your content, and they care about what you’re doing and what you have to offer.
People are looking at your profile, and you want them to stay there. Ask yourself these two questions:
- What hooks people when they visit your profile?
- What sets me apart from others and makes me look interesting?
When you’re moving people from the Awareness to the Interest phase on Instagram, your visuals are key. There needs to be something on your profile that people would click on. Maybe there’s a title that stands out. Maybe there’s a code that grabs your attention. Or maybe there’s an image that you want to check out or take a closer look at.
I’m not saying everything needs to be super pretty – your profile should portray your authenticity and your own aesthetic. But you also need your content to stand out from other content if you want people to find out more about you in the first place.
Top tip: your profile is not just about who you are and what you want to put out there. It’s also about what resonates with your clients. The key is to find a middle ground between what represents you and what your client wants to see.
3. Trust
Okey so you’ve got the traffic, you’ve got your content that’s enticing and that resonates with your ideal clients – let’s move on to why people should buy from YOU. To get people ready to buy from you, you’ve got to show them what you’re all about, build trust and really connect with your audience.
Connection for me means being really authentic. Many business coaches pretend that their work is all sunshine and f*cking rainbows. That’s just not true. Anyone who runs a business deals with challenges and stress. For me, showing up that way would not be authentic. I obviously need to have my sh*t together to be able to coach others, but I’m not scared of being vulnerable online and sharing how I sometimes go over my limits or struggle with certain aspects of work.
What I also do is show people how I reframe my thoughts and overcome difficult situations. Showing how you’re only human – or even something silly like sharing videos of your cat – creates a connection with your audience.
This is where video comes in.
If you come to me and tell me “I’m not getting any new clients” but you’re also not making videos, you need to start doing this right now.
It’s soooo much easier to trust someone you’ve met in real life than someone you’ve only seen online. If you run an online business, however, the reality is that we can’t always meet people in real life – and the next best thing? You guessed it: getting on camera.
Showing up on video will help potential customers see you as an authority, and also as someone they can build a connection with. It baffles me that there are coaches out there that don’t post videos but still expect people to book a call with them. If you’re scared or nervous, don’t worry! It’s normal to suck at those videos at first – I did too. Honestly, I cringe when I look back at some of the videos I used to put out. But it’s got me to where I am today.
Ask yourself this: are you really so afraid to put yourself out there and to fail that you’re willing to give up on the potential success of your business?
4. Action
The final step is of course getting people to buy from you. If it’s not happening now, there’s probably a disconnect – did you follow the previous 3 steps? of the AITA formula?
Don’t get too stressed – you need to take a scientific approach to the problem and run some experiments to see what’s going wrong with your business processes. My guess is that the disconnect has something to do with authority and authenticity. The way to solve that is through providing value and by showing up on video – preferably a combination of the two! If this is the case, you need to have a closer look at step #3 and really work on building that reputation and trust.
My challenge to you is to focus on creating one killer piece of content per week. If you feel inspired, focus on making videos. And don’t just hide them away in your drafts folder – post them! Try to answer the exact question or pain points your potential client is dealing with, and share quick wins that your audience can implement right away. When people next visit your profile, they’ll experience that value. The more valuable and relatable content you put out, the quicker interested followers will start trusting you enough to buy your services.
Stick to the challenge, and you’ll be bringing in new clients and more sales in no time!
RECAP:
When you’re struggling with getting more clients through social media, follow these steps to analyze your profile and content and make the right adjustments:
- Look at your IG profile:
- Are you ACTUALLY visible?
If not, change up your profile pic with a clear and inviting image of yourself. - Are you posting CONSISTENTLY, preferably EVERY DAY?
If not, you know what to do: start creating that content!
- Are you ACTUALLY visible?
- Implement the AITA formula:
- Is your potential audience AWARE of you and your brand?
If not, try and generate more traffic by for example reposting viral content or focus on word-of-mouth advertising with your current clients. - Are your potential clients INTERESTED in your content?
If not, ask yourself:
– What hooks people when they visit your profile?
– What sets me apart from others and makes me look interesting?
And do more of this in your content!
- Do your potential clients TRUST you?
If not, start making videos to show your authentic authority and get potential clients to trust who you are and what you are about. - Are your hit leads taking any ACTION?
If not, run some experiments and revisit the previous 3 steps. What are you data telling you?
- Is your potential audience AWARE of you and your brand?
I’m sure that with these steps, you’ll become a sales-assassin on social media!
Now go and create that content, boss, I know you can do it!
PS If you want to start showing up on video in 2022, I have created the Start To Video training to help you become more confident on camera. Watch it for FREE via this link: https://fastforwardamy.com/starttovideo
Watch this episode on YouTube, or listen via iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, and search for episode 118 of The FastForwardAmy Show.
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